Hold onto Memories
Driving home from an impromptu dinner out, my husband started to laugh. When I asked him what was so funny, he said, “I’m pretty sure today is our engagement anniversary.” I rolled my eyes good humoredly and laughed too. For the past few years, at least, we have unexpectedly found ourselves out during the last week of September. This time we had planned to have our home group (every other Wednesday) but due to lots of sickness, we cancelled at the last minute. Our sitter was already planning on coming, and she told us we might as well go enjoy the evening.
Neither of us can quite remember the exact date that he engaged. Not that it was unmemorable, because I can remember every detail of that day, but the number on the calendar is elusive.
I have never been great at marking the seasons. As the calendar turns a new page, and the weather is seemingly doing the same, I still struggle with how to signal the passage of time.
I have never been one to decorate for the seasons. I leave that to Christmas, and even then the tree does most of the heavy lifting.
Birthdays, anniversaries, days of memorial pass with seemingly small acknowledgements, but often nothing that feels weighty enough to convey their significance.
October is a festive month here accentuated by the changing of the leaves and the crisp autumn air. So many things to do, so much fun to be had. And yet the same amount of hours in the day. The same amount of days in a month. The same amount of responsibilities (plus some extra germs to go along with the weather).
As a mom, I want to do all the fun things. To squeeze every last ounce of fun out of these days of childhood. To leave them with an abundance of memories, and maybe crowd out the hard things that come.
In so many ways I was feeling the weight of motherhood. The responsibility of shaping our kids young years. Lamenting to my husband, I said, “But I want them to make good memories.”
To which he replied, “They will have good memories. We can’t control what they remember. We can just do our best to spend time together as a family.”
And isn’t that the truth. We should try to do fun things together. But I don’t have any control about what they remember and what they don’t. A mind is a funny thing. Many moments fall away. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what we retain. Memories can come flooding back in great clarity and then swiftly recede back into the corners of our minds without checking in with us.
Feelings of joy come in the most mundane of moments. Feelings of sorrow wash over us unexpected as well.
Memories are a funny thing. What is the right way to mark the season. To commemorate and to honor and to savor?
There is no right answer for that.
This weeks changing leaves and changing calendar reminds us that fall brings winter. And winter turns into spring.
Seasons will come and go without our permission. And without our celebration. They winter will come even if we do not decorate for Christmas. Fall will end no matter if we picked apples and drank cider.
Let that be our motivation to go ahead and mark the season without pressure for grandeur and perfection.
We trade lemonade for hot chocolate.
Make pumpkin muffins instead of zucchini.
Watch a falls movies, and make piles of leaves.
Do a million small things not because you have to but because you can.
Celebration can happen in many big and small ways. Honor can happen in our homes and our hearts.
Memories will be made and cemented more by the way we make each other feel in the mundane moments of the day than in the big grand gestures.
My kids might not remember that I let them ride the carnival rides at Pumpkin Fest. I hope that they don’t remember the many times their mom overreacted or lost her cool. But I hope that they remember they were loved. That they were celebrated.
I pray all my kids cling to the feeling that we were not perfect, but we were together.
